


don't waste your time on me, you're already the voice inside my head (I miss you)

by SaintHeretical



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, F/M, Sad, Sharing a Body, Suicidal Thoughts, TRoS Spoilers, Tears, Was supposed to be fix-it but ended up being my therapy session
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:27:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21882979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaintHeretical/pseuds/SaintHeretical
Summary: Post-The Rise of Skywalker (contains spoilers)Rey and Ben have a conversation.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 18
Kudos: 110





	don't waste your time on me, you're already the voice inside my head (I miss you)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi welcome to hell!!!!
> 
> So this was supposed to be a fix-it fic, but ended up becoming me angrily sobbing into my keyboard about how we got such a hollow ending to this saga and this relationship. So this doesn't fix things...but for me it provided some emotional catharsis regarding all of the unsaid feelings and complexities of Ben and Rey's relationship.
> 
> Enjoy (??)

The first few weeks pass in a blur of hugs and smiles, tears and unmitigated joy. It’s strange how normal she feels, like the horror of the past year has been nothing more than a bad dream that she’s finally woken up from. Every morning, she rises from a comfortable bed, well rested and ready to repair the galaxy with her friends. Every night she falls asleep bone tired and content.

Eventually, they start to wonder what’s next. That’s the strange thing about living in conflict for so long; it creates an itch for new adventures, skittish muscles, and dreams of new beginnings. Finn longs to find out more about his family with Jannah and the rest of her colony, while Poe is already caught up in the tenuous web of galactic politics, and Rey– 

Rey goes to Tatooine with BB-8, because it seems like the right thing to do. 

Dry air fills her lungs the moment she sets foot on the planet, bringing with it the comfort of familiarity. It’s easier to breathe here than it is on green planets like Kef Bir and Takodana. There the air is heavy with moisture, too thick for her desert lungs to handle without strain. Now, there’s a lightness in her steps as she follows the Force to a small, smoke-charred hut outside of Mos Eisley, a collection of lightsabers clanking together in her bag.

_It’s the right thing to do_ , she muses as she forces the last remnants of the Skywalker family deep in the sand. _It’s what they would have wanted._

(She resolutely does not think about the pile of tattered black clothing hidden under her bunk back on the _Falcon_.)

The sky is tinted pink and orange when she walks back to her ship, BB-8 dutifully rolling on next to her. Her next steps are unclear; she’s buried the Skywalker lightsabers and the galaxy is finally at peace, but there’s still a jitteriness to her limbs, one that’s been growing ever since she landed on this planet. With a frown, she tosses her bag onto the sand and sits herself down on the canvas. Fine sand blows with the wind, brushing up against her bare claves like a thousand tiny needles.

BB-8 gives her a concerned chirp.

“I just need a moment,” she replies. “Just need to centre myself in the Force so I know what I’m supposed to do next.”

That’s what she’s supposed to do now, right? Like making her own lightsaber and running through her daily combat forms. The way of the Jedi, the path that she now walks alone. Eyes closed, she takes in a deep breath and brings herself back to that moment she stood before her gr– Palpatine, when the voices of countless Jedi filled her and moved her, inspiring her steps forward.

“Be with me,” she murmurs. “ _Be with me_.”

Time passes as the temperature dips with the setting suns. Rey tries to empty herself, to be open to the guidance and peace that’s just beyond her fingertips. She’s a vessel for the Force, just waiting to be filled by the wisdom of those before her. Receptive. Serene.

Then she opens her eyes, and everything feels _wrong._

Her hands...they’re too small.

Her body is the same, too small, too easily battered by the desert winds. There’s a startling frailty to her wrists, and when she reaches down between her legs, there’s something wrong _there_ too.

Then she blinks, and everything feels right again.

Wrinkling her nose, she stands and brushes the sand out of her clothes. “That was..strange,” she mumbles. She slings her bag over her shoulder and clambers up to her ship.

A mug of instant caf and a ration pack later, she cozies herself into her bunk and pulls out one of the Jedi texts. This volume deals mostly with the procurement of kyber crystals and their Force channelling abilities, interjected with the author’s very pointed opinions regarding the proper construction of lightsaber hilts. It’s not the most thrilling read, but interesting enough that she’s able to get through at least fifteen pages before her eyes start to droop and the light around her grows dim.

_Rey._

She wakes. Or does she?

The Jedi text falls from her lap with a hollow _thunk_ as she sits up in her bed, so quickly she nearly smashes her head on the bunk above. It’s night still, she can tell by the sluggish pulse of life throbbing outside of the ship, but the interior of the _Falcon_ is illuminated by a strong, bluish glow, emanating from the chair right next to her–

_Hey._

“B-ben?” Her voice cracks with fatigue. “H-how are you–?”

Because it _is_ Ben, her Ben, just as she remembers him, tall and strong and bright in the Force and all of a sudden everything tumbles back into place. It’s like a scab being ripped from an open wound; all of the pain and loneliness she’s been pushing behind her flimsy walls batters through her defenseless mind so much that her fingers dig into her scalp and she cries out in agony.

He loves her. He _loved_ her...and he died for her.

“Why did you–” She chokes, gagging on the rush of sadness threatening to bubble up and out. “W-why did you do it? Why did you–?”

_Because I love you._

She doesn’t hear his voice as much as she feels it reverberate through her soul. He accompanies the confession with an easy little half smile and a shrug that reminds her of Han. 

It _hurts_. Oh stars, it hurts, even more so than it did the moment he passed, because now she realizes how she’s tried to pack it away within her, just like she did with her parents. Their faces flash before her and she sobs again, loneliness creeping back into her veins like poison. _I’m alone_ , she admits to herself. Finn is off with Lando and Jannah and the others, and Poe...Poe was never much comfort anyway. Leia is dead. And Ben– 

Once she brushes the tears from her eyes and really takes a second to look at him, she notices that he’s not really _there_. Not ghostly like the Force apparition of Luke that she’s seen on Ahch-to and Tattooine. No, it’s more like Ben’s a speck in her eye or a vision that can only be seen from a certain angle.

_I’m not a Force ghost,_ he confesses with another little shrug. _Didn’t have enough of the Force left for that._

“So what are you? How are you here?” She scrambles up from her bed and grabs at his knee, not really expecting to actually _feel_ anything, so when her fingers brush up against fabric, she flinches and scrambles back.

“Am I dead?” she blurts out. “Is this the Netherworld or something?”

_No._ He stands, his black curls just brushing up against a low-hanging tangle of wires. _You feel me because you’re the one manifesting me. I’m like a memory._ He bites his lip. _Sort of._

“Sort of?” Confusion floods Rey’s brain and she wrinkles her nose. “This is not like any memory I’ve had before.”

_Yeah. I guess it’s a bit different because I’m a part of you now._ Ben walks over to the side of her bunk and ducks enough for her make out his face. _You’re manifesting my physical image and your physical reactions to it, but I’m the one interacting with you. It’s easier to do this when you’re asleep. I tried earlier, and–_

“That was you?” 

_Yeah I– sorry._ He looks down at his hands. _I didn’t know how it would feel to be inside someone else’s body. I mean–_

It’s Rey’s turn to look down at her fingers, which are nervously twisted together in her lap. “So you...do you see everything I see?”

She thinks of the lightsabers buried in the sand, of a golden yellow kyber crystal and bonfires on Kef Bir. Of her hands scrubbing soap into her bare skin, wrapping her breastband, using the fresher, of–

_No._ His mouth is set into a firm line. _Only for that one moment, and then nothing._

She breathes a sigh of relief. It only lasts for a second before it’s replaced with sorrow. “So then what do you see all the time? What do you do?”

He takes the time to kneel down so that he’s eye level with her. Rey has to look away. It’s _too_ much to see him like this, smiling, whole, _hers_ , and know that it’s all an illusion. Some projection of her mind that’s been pieced together from her memories and the shard of Ben’s life force that now powers her own. _I just...am,_ he attempts to explain. _When I’m not me...then I’m you._

“That makes no sense,” she sputters, even though it makes perfect sense. It’s how she’s managed to survive these past weeks. It’s how she’s made it to this planet. It’s how her heart keeps beating every single day.

“I...I don’t want this.”

It feels like the ultimate betrayal to say those words out loud, even though her only audience is Not-Ben and a powered down BB-8 slumped over in the corner. But the truth is. every hollow smile and half squeezed hug she’s given since she left Exogol has been halfhearted, and every new adventure has just been an excuse to make her body move. “I feel like nothing has changed, and yet _everything_ has changed.”

His voice is just above a whisper. _How so?_

“Because I had you,” she chokes out. “I had you, finally, and you were everything I had ever I wanted and then you _died_. You died saving my life. And my life– for almost all my life I’ve been alone. And now...I’m still alone. _My life wasn’t worth saving_.”

His chest rises and falls even though she knows he’s not breathing. It’s just another trick of her mind, assigning him the physical reactions that she would expect to see if it was the flesh and blood version of Ben Solo kneeling in front of her. 

“But I’ve kept on living,” she continues. “Because it’s what I’m supposed to do. Because somebody has to keep the Jedi alive, and the Resistance still needs me and–”

_But what do you want?_ he urges. 

“I wanted _you_! I wanted you, and I wanted my parents, and you’re all _dead_ and I’m still here!”

Tears pour from her eyes, meeting the mucus that’s dripping from her nose as she sobs into her hands. It all _hurts_ So. Damn. Much. Her chest hurts from holding in her sorrow, and her head hurts from trying to figure out what the hell’s going on, and her heart–

“You broke my heart.”

_I am your heart._

“Shut up!” she spits. “I never asked for this. I never asked for you to–”

_I didn’t have a choice._

“Of course you had a choice.”

_Would you have left_ me _?_

Something that feels like a hand, and yet also very much not like one, tugs at her fingers. She looks up, watching passively as Ben presses her palm against his abdomen, right over the tattered hole in his shirt where she plunged the lightsaber into his flesh. “T-that was different.” The excuse feels hollow even to her ears. “You weren’t actually dead.”

_Does it matter?_ His hand grips hers in a memory of a squeeze. _You gave some of your Force to me. I was just giving it back._

“Ben…”

_With my last breath–_ A silvery tear drips from his too-bright eyes as his mouth curls into a smile. _I would always come back for you, Rey._

She chokes back a sob and rushes forward, bringing her lips to his in a pressing, brilliant kiss. He groans against her, hands scrambling to grasp her hair, her neck, her waist before scooping around her chest to hold her tight against him. It’s not the same as it was the first time, but it’s _something_. It’s emotion and connection and the quiet, soft sounds in Ben’s throat that she was too adrenaline-flooded to hear those weeks ago on Exogol. She pulls back enough to breathe a mumbled “stay with me” against his mouth, and he responds by gripping his fingers into her ribcage. 

_Promise me you’ll live,_ he murmurs. _Promise me you’ll be happy again. Promise me you’ll love again–_

“N-no,” she chokes. She thinks of how the warmth leached from his body as he fell away from her lips. “No, I can’t”

_Rey._

“I can’t, I can’t.” 

He pulls back and stares at her, his dark eyes luminous in the ethereal glow. _Please don’t wait for me._

Something dark and destructive flashes through Rey’s mind, and Ben _growls._

_Don’t even think about it,_ he scolds. _It’s not your time yet._

“It wasn’t your time either,” she spits. Then everything cracks open again, rivulets of pain running out and she gasps. “It’s not fair that I have to be the one to live.”

_It always had to be you._

“Ben–”

_You’re waking up._ He presses a small kiss to her lips, then her nose, and finally her forehead. _I don’t know when you’ll see me again._

“Ben, _no_.” She digs her fingers into the not-fabric of his shirt, as if that will stop the way he’s fading before her eyes. “No, don’t leave me.”

_That’s the thing._ Everything is fading, but she can just make him out against the oppressive light crowding her vision. He brushes another kiss against her lips and smiles, toothy and dimpled and full. _I’ll always be with you._

She wakes with a gasp, then immediately reaches her hand under her bunk to retrieve her scavenged pile of Ben’s clothing. With a furtive glance at the still powered-off droid in the corner, she brings his shirt to her nose and inhales. It smells like ozone and dust and sweat, _Ben’s_ sweat, and for the first time in what feels like forever, she lets herself cry.


End file.
